The 32 year old chairperson: Lived experience as a governance asset

Key takeaways: The 32 year old chairperson: Lived experience as a governance asset

• Kayla accidentally discovered governance discovery due to a restructuring and the role of company secretary falling into her division.
• Her advice is to take learning opportunities wherever you can take them to get to where you want to get to.
• Hard work always pays off.
• Get involved in a supportive network where you can exchange vocational skills and get advice.
• Volunteering for her first board appointment opened many opportunities.
• Kayla recommends spending time evaluating what you want from my career.
• Be curious about what you’re interested in.
• Lived experience is not taught or learned. It was lived.

Why is lived experience in governance important?

• The board operates as an ecosystem. On a board you:
  • Work together towards the same goal.
  • Share similar skill sets.
  • Work on different parts of the same task or different parts of the same goal.
• Having board members with lived experience, regardless of their age or work experience helps to fill a gap in understanding that can only be filled by people who’ve lived through different life events or situations.

• Leadership by those with lived experience can go much deeper than data gathered in board reports. 
• Board reports are essential but good governance needs a combination of standard governance frameworks and lived experience to bring context to challenges and solutions.
• A person with lived experience of difficult life events will have additional language to express what’s happening in boardroom situations.

Understandable commodities

• The more usual commodities to have in the boardroom are education and qualifications.
• Lived experience is a commodity worth leaning into.
• It is worth combining the two as a qualification is an understandable currency that people relate to.

For aspiring directors, it’s useful to ask yourself:

• What makes you who you are?
• What perspective do you have?
• What lived experience are you comfortable tapping into and leveraging as a resource?
• What do you do well, that is great because of how you do it, that no one else can?
• What are your motivations?
• Do you have the grit to lead?

For current directors, it’s useful to:

• Understand that diversity in the boardroom is more than adding women. Consider lived experiences and neurodivergence as an asset for the boardroom.
• Ask yourself, what doors can you open for people from diverse backgrounds?
• Ask yourself, who can you think of that would benefit from your help?

Kayla was 31 years old when she became the chairperson of a multimillion-dollar not-for-profit organisation in Perth, Western Australia – the youngest in the organisation’s history (and possibly, in Australia).

Not only was she without c-suite experience, she didn’t even have a university degree.

Learn how she did it, how others can do it (and why they should), and why lived experience is important in today’s boardrooms.

Your key takeaways from this webinar will be:

– Realising the inherent value of lived experience and its role in governance.

– Embracing unconventional pathways into governance and leadership.

– Recognising the (under-utilised) benefits of millennial leadership.

Kayla counts over 8 years of cumulative experience either side of the boardroom door – both as Chairperson and SVP from the non-executive director side, as well as the company secretariat and board operations side. Kayla’s governance experience is triangulated across Western Australian government-trading enterprise, and strategic and operational boards in the nonprofit sector. Kayla’s education is unconventionally limited having only attained her Bachelor of Commerce (Management) from Curtin University at 32 years old. In 2023, Kayla also completed the Business and Law High Achievers Program with Curtin University, obtained her International Board Director Competency Designation (IBDC.D) from M.A. Pfister Strategy Group in New York and became a Certified International Negotiator (CIN) with the Chartered Institute of Professional Certifications. Kayla was awarded a full scholarship to the Emerging Leaders in Governance Program (ELGP) in 2022 and holds governance qualifications from the Governance Institute of Australia (GIA) and the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD). Kayla was also a Finalist in the 3YS Owls Governance Top 100 in Australia for the past 4 years in a row (2019-2023).

In her personal life (that irrevocably impacted her career trajectory), Kayla has experienced challenges with complex trauma; domestic violence, sexual violence, and the criminal justice system; housing insecurity and transitional homeless; a raft of mental health challenges; and neurodiversity. Accordingly, Kayla is a fierce advocate for the lived experience voice. Also an accomplished martial artist, who graded for her black belt in Japanese ju jitsu with a broken arm, Kayla accredits much of her mental and spiritual recovery to her continuing martial arts journey, as well as leaning on the discipline in her professional life. Known for her ‘zest’ and intensity, Kayla is reputationally a high performer and an emerging leader to watch.